On July 22, 2026, Madison police officer Kiel Peterson tased Corey Ruiz, then shot him at close range in the middle of a busy intersection. Corey was killed in broad daylight, in front of witnesses, in the Marquette neighborhood. 

In the days since, elected officials and some organizations have called for police body cameras as the solution. The argument is familiar: if only officers were wearing cameras, we would know what happened. There would be transparency. There would be accountability. 

We already know what happened. Corey Ruiz was executed in the street. The problem is not a lack of evidence. The problem is a lack of power. 

Body cameras do not give us power. They give the police more surveillance capacity. They film us, not the officers who wear them. They produce footage that belongs to the police, stored on police servers, released or withheld at police discretion. And when the footage does surface — as it has in case after case — the same institutions that protected the officer before the camera existed protect him after. Transparency is not accountability. Accountability is not control. 

The following piece was originally published by Max Rameau and M Adams as part of Forward From Ferguson: Community Control Over Police. It was written years ago. It is more urgent today than ever. We republish it now because the same trap is being set again, and our community must recognize it before we walk into it. The demand is not body cameras. The demand is community control. 

Freedom Inc. — July 2026

The Case Against Police Body Cameras and for Community Control

by M Adams and Max Rameau

The Root or core issue at stake, the cause of the problem of police abuse is that Black communities are effectively domestic colonies in the US, and the police serve as the occupying army used to enforce that colonial domination. If the domestic colony is the essential tool of analysis for understanding the oppression and exploitation of Black communities in the US, then the police as an occupying army is the central tool of analysis required to understand the otherwise inexplicable extent of police harassment, arrests, brutality and even murder of Black people. 

Equally as important, understanding that police violence against Black communities is part of their job as an occupying army, clarifies why neither local elected officials, nor courts nor the federal Justice Department is able to stop the abuse: because the abuse is an integral part of the police's mission. Until we end the colonial relationship between the larger White society and the Black community, economic and social injustice will persist. Until we end the occupation of Black communities by a hostile police force, hyper-active arrest rates, police brutality and killings of Black people will continue. The occupation of Black communities by the police is the core issue at stake and until that contradiction is resolved, the police murder of Black people will continue. The police serve as an occupying force in low-income Black communities. 

For the Movement to meet the historic potential of this moment, it must be visionary, bold and ambitious. As a result of highly publicized instances of police terror leveled against the Black communities across the US, many people, including some for the very first time, are questioning the relationship between the police and the communities they patrol. 

In that context, tinkering around the edges in pursuit minor reforms when the opportunity for fundamental transformation of society is within our grasp, not only sells short the valiant efforts of those who rebelled and put their lives on the line to make this moment, but is an outright betrayal of those suffering under the boot of police, and other, oppression. It is a betrayal of our historic responsibility to end systems of oppression. Because no people have ever tripped and fell into freedom, and no oppressors have ever accidentally freed their oppressed, fundamentally altering the power dynamic between the Black community and the police can only happen through deliberate and intentional organizing towards clearly identified objectives. 

In the aftermath of every police killing a broad range of reforms are proposed, some of them are serious, but others are just designed to confuse and end protests: civilian oversight, more training for the police, more Black police, changes to the use of force matrix and more. In recent years the latest reform has been pushed not just by those fighting against police brutality, but by government officials themselves: police worn body cameras. 

The argument in favor is that body camera provide third party, independent transparency and that, itself, will somehow address the issue of police violence. But Eric Garner, John Crawford and 12 year old Tamir Rice were all murdered on video with full and brutal transparency, and no indictments were handed down. So are body worn cameras a legitimate option for curbing police brutality? 

The Government Wants More Surveillance 

The first point to make clear is that the government wants more surveillance. The greatest impediment to more surveillance is not that the government is reluctant, but that people keep opposing. There have been major pushes to allow greater government surveillance, but most proposals have been met with stiff opposition. That opposition, however, tends to diminish in the face of crisis. 

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the government significantly expanded its ability to surveil. But instead of being met with opposition, it was met with broad support and even cheers, including for measures that never would have passed before the crisis. In the same way, in the wake of specific instances of police violence, the crisis sets off a search for solutions. 

However, in many of the instances of police murder where calls for body cameras were made, the incident was already recorded and nothing happened to the cops. So what would have happened differently if body cameras were in place? 

A critical nuance to note is that police body cameras do not record the police, they record you. The cameras are mounted on police, but do not film them, they film the persons the cops interact with. 

While most people would oppose cameras in their neighborhoods filming them 24 hours a day, police body worn cameras work the same way. A cop can passively stand on the corner and record every person walking by, what they are wearing, what time they are at that intersection and who they are with. Layer on top of that audio capture, facial recognition software and real time remote monitoring from headquarters and the police have a full surveillance operation that would never be allowed if it were marketed that way. 

Most body camera usage to date has not been used as evidence against police misconduct, but as evidence against those who are harassed and arrested by the police. Body cameras do not convict police, they convict regular people. 

There is no evidence that police cameras stop police brutality, but there is plenty of evidence that the police want more surveillance and this is more surveillance. 

They Control the Video 

One assumption seems to be that because the video exists, it somehow is controlled by or belongs to us, but the reality is that it belongs to the police. Officers deactivate their cameras; they warn each other about activated cameras so that they change their language and conceal their behavior; instead of openly conspiring to plant evidence, they use code words that the camera picks up, but that they can deny intent; they yell 'stop resisting!' even when there is no resistance so that they can create a record to justify their violence. 

Footage is lost, corrupted, or withheld for months during the 'ongoing investigation'. But even when the footage is found and submitted, it is used by prosecutors who are just police at a different point along to prison industrial complex supply chain, and no charges are filed. When charges are filed, the prosecution is weak and juries are instructed to defer to the judgment of the cop. The camera adds to bureaucratic steps and to public confusion, without altering the outcome. The same institutions that protected the police before the camera existed protect him after one is strapped to his chest. 

Police departments, prosecutors, and internal affairs divisions are not neutral arbiters awaiting proof, they are each playing a different position on the same team. When a cop kills, the system that investigates the killing is the same system that planned and authorized the patrol, trained the police, and protects the property of the wealthy. These are not investigators seeking truth, these are teammates running a trick play designed to make you think the ball is going in one direction when it is actually going in another. 

Every interaction between the cops and the public becomes permanent police property. The footage is stored on police servers, accessed through police protocols, released or withheld at police discretion. The camera that was sold as a tool of transparency functions in practice as a tool of surveillance. It makes the community visible to the police, not the other way around. 

Police worn body cameras do not challenge the underlying power dynamic between Black communities and the police, they just document it more thoroughly. A documented killing is still a killing and a recorded occupation is still an occupation. 

Why Transparency is Insufficient 

The primary argument in support of body cameras is that they increase transparency. As previously mentioned, several police murders have been fully caught on video, even if not recorded by police, with full transparency but no difference in outcome. 

Transparency is not the same as a accountability. Capturing a murder on video might demonstrate transparency, but that does not necessarily translate into accountability for the murder. 

Accountability is being held to a per-determined standard. But what happens when the standard itself is faulty? If the standard is that any cop who fears for their life can shoot a 12 year old child playing with a toy that is legal even if it was not a toy, and the cop claims they fear 12 year olds, then what is the accountability? 

In the same way that transparency is not the same as accountability, accountability is not the same as control. We do not control the occupying army and so the rules of accountability will always benefit the occupiers. 

The problem is not transparency. The problem is that in colonialism, we do not have power.

The Reform Trap 

The body camera proposal is seductive precisely because It asks for something small and promises something tangible. It allows elected officials to say they are doing something without challenging the fundamental structure of police power. And because it seems reasonable, it is politically easier than the demand we actually need to make. 

Reformist proposals accept that the overall system is fundamentally good, but just needs a few tweaks here and there. And each reform enacted legitimizes the system by making it appear responsive to criticism. In this respect, the occupation does not weaken, it adapts and makes itself more difficult to challenge because it can point to the reforms it has already accepted. Even after the next police murder. 

Body cameras do not reduce police power, they just give the public the illusion of oversight while expanding the surveillance capacity of the state. It answer the question "what happened?" while leaving untouched the question "who decides what happens next?" The first question is about documentation, but the second is about power. Documentation without power is just a receipt. 

Reform asks: how can this institution be improved? Transformation asks: who should have power over this institution? The answer to the first question is body cameras. The answer to the second is community control.

Our Objective: Community Control 

Our demand should not be body cameras, it must be community control over police. 

Community control means the people most impacted by policing have binding power over police policy, priorities, personnel, and budgets. It means the community decides the standard, what accountability looks like and enforces it. It means the people being policed have power over the people doing the policing, not the other way around. 

As we face a crossroad in this Movement Moment, it is critical to recognize that the difference between reforming a bad system to rid it of it's most egregious elements and ending that bad system, is properly distinguishing, and acting upon, the difference between the symptom and the cause of economic and social injustice. 

The choice is not between body cameras and nothing. The choice is between reforms that strengthen the occupation and demands that end it.